Small
is Beautiful in New York
By Thomas Pellechia
In New York City, the hundreds of wine and spirit shops make it easy
to find rated Medoc, Rioja, Tuscany, Victoria, Marlborough, Napa.
But what about Irrouleguy Courbu, Oltrepo Pavese Bonarda, Savoie Roussette,
Styrian Morillon, Jura, Jumilla, Ontario and New York State?
Until recently, these wines were available only to New Yorkers with
adventurous spirits and perhaps frequent flyer miles. But now, the
city-bound have access to hitherto under-represented wines thanks
to a handful of small, niche wine retailers.
Best Cellars is arguably the best-known niche retailer. In 1996, Joshua
Wesson went to Manhattan’s Upper East Side shopping district
with a selection of unknown wines. He applied trademarked descriptive
words to make wine seem ‘edible’, and capped prices at
$10 per bottle. His success spawned a trend and his business is now
located in a few states with prices up to $15.
Before Wesson, however, there was Nancy Maniscalco. Located in the
Upper West Side, Nancy’s Wines for Food began in 1992. Later,
when Maniscalco met importer Willie Gluckstern, the former succumbed
to the latter’s infectious excitement over German wine. Today,
with its ‘Discover Riesling for Food’ programme, Nancy’s
niche – German, Austrian, Alsatian – accounts for more
than a tenth of inventory.
Nancy’s success, with a focus on affordable, food-friendly wine,
commanded serious attention; then, between 1999 and 2000, niche wine
retailing took off.
Among the first of the new crop, Italian Wine Merchants filled a void.
Mario
Batali and Joe
Bastianich helped to create a buzz over the then misunderstood
Italian wine sector. Just off bustling Union Square, the shop is warmly
lit, and its wooden shelves display a few hundred Italian wine labels
(the wine you take home is stored in a temperature-controlled basement).
The back tasting room doubles as a kitchen for wine and food pairings.
Aimed at the uninitiated, this shop is not for the under-financed.
Close To Home
New York law allows a local winery to sell not only its wine in the
tasting room but wines of other New York wineries. Talk about a niche:
a winery named Vintage New York represents 75% of the 200 wineries
that produce in four separate New York appellations. The wines are
sold at a tasting room in fashionable Soho and one on the Upper West
Side.
Unlike regular retailers, we can sell food,” says the aptly
named Susan Wine. ‘Perfect for our signature, food-friendly,
inexpensive local wines.’
In Greenwich Village, winesby.com takes us global. ‘I thought
the internet was the place,’ says Jeff Hock. ‘I established
with the express purpose to sell wine online, but today the internet
accounts for only 20% of sales.’
NY State alcohol laws require a physical location from which off-premise
alcohol sales can take place, resulting in Hock having had a rough
start. To help kick things off, he offered local delivery within 90
minutes for as little as one bottle. Business has since picked up
and the shop rotates a global stock of about 80 obscure labels priced
between $10 and $40 a bottle.
About a kilometer across town, in the East Village, is-wine Innovative
Wine Merchants has a rotating stock of 125 hardly-ever-seen worldwide
labels. The shop has a warm design, including well-worn upholstered
chairs that draw people in.
But what counts here, as the shop’s Kathy Green puts it, is
that ‘Wine should not be over-oaked, over-extracted, or over-priced.’
A majority of terroir-driven wines priced at about $12 -18 per bottle
prove she’s not kidding. The shop is light on California.
Then there are two off the beaten trail. At Chambers Street Wines,
near the World Trade Center site, the focus is crus Beaujolais and
Loire. Staff are professional and knowledgeable, and average price
is $15 per bottle.
In Park Slope Brooklyn, Prospect Wine gave 25% shelf space to wines
produced worldwide from organically grown grapes and 10% to grower
Champagnes.
How do customers know they’ve entered a New York niche wine
retail shop? When staff aren’t mystified by a request for Pignolo,
Quarts de Chaume or Gamashara. And since the State Liquor Authority
abandoned the so-called ‘Blue-Laws’, these wines can be
found on Sunday too.
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